After Ethereum made an exit from the resource-intensive mining process to verify transactions and add blocks to the chain, the miners largely focused on mining Bitcoin. Yet, there are a few crypto coins in the market that are still attracting a lot of miners and one such is Litecoin.
On 4 November, Litecoin’s foundation made a post on Coinmarketcap, mentioning that the Litecoin mining difficulty has reached a record high of 18 million hashes and has become more decentralized.
According to coinwarz.com, the Litecoin mining difficulty has reached 18.66 million hashes.
The higher the mining difficulty rate, the more computing resources will be required to achieve consensus and find a block. This leads to a fierce competition among miners to mine the blocks quickly.
Like its parent, Litecoin has 84 million mineable coins, and close to 71.5 million coins are already mined and in circulation. Litecoin uses ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) to mine new coins.
In the last one month, the price of Litecoin (LTC) has appreciated by over 33%, reaching a high of $72.61, compared to Bitcoin (BTC), which is only up by over 8% during the same period. LTC’s all-time high level is $387, recorded in May 2021.
Last Wednesday, the price of Litecoin spiked by over 13% in a single day after payments-giant MoneyGram said that it will soon allow US customers to buy and sell BTC, ETH, and LTC on its platform.
Litecoin halving slated for 2023
A bitcoin fork created in 2011, Litecoin follows the tokenomics of Bitcoin, including the halving process.
In 2023, Litecoin will experience the third halving event, undergoing a reduction of the current supply rate of new tokens from the current 12.5 LTC to 6.25 LTC for every block. The event occurs every four years.
Litecoin has a block time of 2.5 minutes, meaning a new block is created every 2.5 minutes, which adds 12.5 LTC into circulation.
